Tax

Roseanne, Sally Field, and maybe a Scandinavian country

I hate to sound like a whiny Millenial but why does everything have to be so hard? No, seriously. Being human is hard. We know this. There’s all those messy emotions that wreck endless havoc. There’s thoughts which seem to be persistent and incurable. There’s relationships which are great but also vastly complicated and fragile. To top it all off, we’re walking around in these meat-wrapped skeletons which will slowly (or not so slowly) decay while we’re still occupying them.

The whole system begs the question - is this the best we could come up with?

Which brings me to taxes.

One of the hardest, messiest, complicated, fragile, and decaying things we have to encounter as people in society.

There was an episode of Roseanne where our title character is trying to fill out her tax return with her good-natured and lovable husband, Dan. It sprawls into chaos and culminates with Roseanne going down to the IRS office and giving a Norma Rae-esque speech about the insanity of this system. Her rant reaches a climactic apex whereupon everyone in the lobby bursts into applause.

In the next episode something entirely new happens and taxes are a long-forgotten memory.

I feel like Roseanne in the IRS lobby.

This convoluted system, coupled with the laughable-if-it-weren’t-happening-to-me communication and organization style of my tax preparer, leaves me 5 days out from Tax Day and the IRS saying they haven’t received my e-filing which I completed two weeks ago.

Sigh.

And then scream.

There’s an urban legend that in some countries citizens simply get a bill in the mail from the government saying what they owe. That’s their tax system. That’s the whole thing. A single piece of mail that the government calculates, processes, and issues. Then folks write a check and call it a day.

This utopian system, if real, is probably Scandinavian because we laud the Scandinavians as better and more evolved than us. Or maybe Swiss. It seems like something the Swiss would do, given their intolerance for inefficiency.

It certainly is better than the facocta system we have here. This system, where I have to jump through hoops, weave through an endless labyrinth, and beat my head against the wall in order to give the government money, is so wildly and inconceivably stupid. One must navigate the terrain solo, use some form of software, or hire somebody. It makes me long to live in some mythical Scandinavian country where it’s winter 10 months out of the year just to avoid this bullshit.

What really gets my goat? This whole thing, that benefits the rich and punishes the poor, is entirely made up! Over the course of our country’s history, human people developed laws and rules to build this system. Choices were made and regulations decreed. I reiterate - humans made this hot steamy pile of bureaucratic insanity. We didn’t just choose it, we created it. We are the architects of the tax code that oppresses us.

Much like the problematic nature of existence, I ask - is this the best we could come up with? Were there not better options available? Did no one have a different idea on the day they were inventing taxes in America? Did no one know about the mythical Scandinavian country that may or may not exist?

The deeper question beyond this silly rant is: what systems have I created for my own life that I hate? What are things that feel personally oppressive for which I was the architect? What have I opted for that has me banging my head against a wall? And is that the best I can do? What about the mythical Patrick that created something better? Could I just pretend to be him for awhile until this Patrick has cleared away some of the bullshit?

I ponder this as I ready myself to storm my tax preparer’s office (for the second time) with all the Roseanne-Norma Rae-Scandinavian energy I can muster.

Sigh.

Bonus: my dog is a sun baby and I couldn’t not take a picture of her basking in all her rooftop glory.